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Division of Licensing "Compliance Guidelines" are Back

Every agency owner knows the liability of having a security officer asleep on duty. Most of them believe Chapter 493 specifically prohibits it. When an officer is found sleeping on duty, he is usually terminated or at least disciplined, and reported to the Division of Licensing for action. Over the past year or so, there has been a growing sense among some agency owners that the terminated officers were being awarded unemployment compensation, being told that sleeping on duty was not misconduct. Agencies were seeing their unemployment insurance rates increase because of these claims. So, was sleeping on duty a violation of the law, which should constitute misconduct, or not? How were agencies to balance the two, terminating for violations of Chapter 493 against losing unemployment claims?

At the March 2010 PIRSAC meeting FASCO asked that the Division assist and clarify the matter. Was sleeping on duty misconduct? We reminded the Division that they used to issue "Compliance Guidelines" in response to questions from agency owners, but stopped a few years ago. FASCO was asking for the Compliance Guidelines to be issued again, and to begin with a response to this question about sleeping on duty. In June, at the following PIRSAC meeting, the Division announced that it would reinstitute Compliance Guidelines.

The "new" Compliance Guideline about sleeping on duty can be found on FASCO's website http://www.fascofl.org in the Members' File Downloads area. FASCO applauds the Division for bringing these back.